Book Review: "In Custody" By Anita Desai

Source:Amazon

Author’s name: Anita Desai

Genre: Fiction

Language: English

This book is about a middle-class man who is a Hindi language professor searching for his own identity in his love for Urdu poetry and a story of an old Urdu poet who was once the king of Urdu poetry world, but his popularity and the admirers of his art are on the verge of extinction. Urdu, a language which used to adorn the Mughal courts has now lost its existence and value in the society. 

About The Author:

Anita Desai is one of the most prominent Indian authors. She has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. Her works include "In Custody" (published in 1984 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize), "Fasting, Feasting" (published in 1999 and became the Booker prize finalist), "The Zig Zag Way", (published in 2004) "Clear Light of Day", "Baumgartner’s Bombay" etc. she was born in Mussorie to a German mother and Bengali father. Her alma mater is Miranda House College, Delhi University where she received her B.A. in English literature. 

"In Custody", Anita Desai reflects upon the extinction of Urdu language and art of Urdu poetry. Deven, who is a great admirer of Urdu poetry but teaches Hindi because he needs to earn money to feed his family and Nur who has given up on his art to write Urdu poetry.

About The Book:

Deven and Murad are childhood friends and as a hobby, Deven writes Urdu poetry for Murad’s magazine. Deven’s character is naïve who easily gets influenced and Murad’s character is deceiving and takes undue advantage of Deven’s innocence by not paying him for the poetry he writes for his magazine. 

This time Murad wants Deven to interview Nur, a giant poet of the world of Urdu poetry and Deven agrees to it quite hesitatingly. When he goes to Delhi, he feels devastated to look at Nur’s condition and meets his wife, Imtiaz Begum. Nur has turned into a man who is involved in leisure activities and is old and not in a condition to write poetry on his own.

The next time he visits Nur, he sees Imtiaz Begum performing at Nur’s place and gets really disappointed and this time he meets an old lady and assumes her to be his first wife.

The third time he goes to Nur’s place with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement and also with a tape recorder to record Nur reciting his verses but ends up empty handed. Nur’s first wife promises him to arrange a room for him to interview Nur but that ends up with Deven bearing all the expenses on his own and without getting a chance to record Nur’s verses in his own voice.

Review:

This story compels the reader to become intrigued about the characters and their lives and to contemplate about their life situations. It reflects upon the condition of an old poet who and his art are at the stage of extinction. It elaborates upon art, culture, city life of Delhi and dilemma of a person’s life. 

The climax of the story might leave the readers with having sympathy towards Deven and Nur as well. so, the bottom line is that It is a wonderful story that has the capability of leaving the readers in awe and despair. it gives an insight into the life of a poet and an art lover and makes the reader feeling the pain of the characters. 

Written by: Harshita Bansal